The social news reading experience that is Flipboard used to be the exclusive realm of smartphones and tablets. Back in March, a major 2.0 update brought out the ability to create one’s own custom magazines. Since then, users have created an astounding two million custom publications so today the startup confirmed Flipboard magazines can now finally be enjoyed on the web, through any standard desktop web browser.

The new feature brings Flipboard closer to becoming a viable Google Reader replacement. Google’s web-based RSS client, you’ll recall, allowed you to tag articles and share all the articles tied to a specific tag as a live-updated stream on a specially created web page…

You can now do the same with Flipboard magazines.

“Starting today, when you share a Flipboard magazine via email or social media, anyone who clicks on the link can read it, whether or not they use Flipboard,” a blog post reads.

The surprisingly responsive web app borrows some neat tricks from the mobile client: pages can be flipped from left and right, there’s an an expansive full-bleed cover and the Flipboard signature look and feel.

Web mags play nicely with the popular desktop browsers like Microsoft’s Internet Explorer 9, Apple’s Safari, Google’s Chrome and Mozilla’s Firefox. It should be noted that the full Flipboard experience continues to be available through Flipboard’s iOS/Android app only.

Curators should think about growing their readership by sticking a link to their own magazine into a web page so visitors can immediately access them outside the mobile app. Indeed, for the first time web magazines give curators the ability to share their custom magazines with people who may not have the Flipboard app installed.

Also announced today: a new Flipboard category called Big Ideas.

This new area features content on important issues, causes and ideas of our day. The nonprofits featured in this category will also have links to their magazines on their websites so anyone can easily find their Flipboard magazines.